About us
About Guerrilla Marketing Strategies
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We teach & work closely with companies to help them rocket their sales and profits through fresh, affordable and practical ideas. Guerrilla Marketing is the most successful marketing brand in history with over 14 million books sold in over 41 languages; because it works. |
About Todd – Who is this guy?
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Todd Woods is CEO of Guerrilla Marketing Strategies, host of Effective Marketing TV, video blogger, national speaker, & author of 2 books; Guerrilla Marketing for Franchisees & Small Businesses & Service…Some People Just Don’t Get It!
Services
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The “gut wrenching story with an awesome ending”
I’ve been there…and it does not feel good! It was terrifying and sucked the life right out of me. There was a constant wave of fear that started at my feet and made its way up through my whole body. I had a constant pit in my stomach the size of a football, sleepless nights, on edge all the time, and quite frankly very frustrated and depressed. I mean REAL depression. I was just about to lose my business & everything I owned and could not see a way out.
I hated to pick up the phone for fear it would be a vendor calling for money. I avoided opening up the mail because it just represented more bills I couldn’t pay. I had to let employees go every week because we couldn’t afford to pay them…and the list goes on.
It happened 12 years ago. I committed to open 5 fruit smoothie stores called Jamba Juice. Surely it “couldn’t fail.” Everybody was buzzing about how hot this business was and could be; it was going to be a total “cash cow.” There were lines out the door most of the time at every location I visited…on rainy nights nonetheless. My partner and I put 1.5 million dollars on the line. I was confident! I was full of passion & excitement…you know, the same passion you had when you first opened YOUR business. I moved my family 850 miles away to Arizona to live my dream.
Finally, it was grand opening day. We were ready. We had extra staffing, all in fresh clean uniforms. The displays looked perfect, the new stainless steel countertops were shining. Fun, upbeat music was blasting. The freezers were nearly overflowing with fruit ready to be blended. I stood there with a great sense of pride- I was beginning to live my dream. The doors opened, but nothing happened. Nor did anything happen the next day, or the next week or even the next month! The only thing that happened was the cash in the bank was going fast and our sales were way below what we expected. My dream was turning into a nightmare.
Here’s where it gets ugly. I will never forget the day I had to make the call, the one to my financial partner that we needed more money. It was gut-wrenching. We could not make the payroll. I could not understand it. I had vendors calling me for money. My food distributor refused to send me product unless it was C.O.D.
I spent a lot of money on advertising but apparently didn’t know as much as I thought. I had no plan. I used the advertising method of choosing to go with whichever salesperson called me. I tried many things…once. When I didn’t get an immediate result I assumed it didn’t work and wouldn’t use that method again.
Well, it got worse. We had to keep shoveling money in to stay afloat. One year later we were forced to close our first location and relocate it. Three months after that we had to close our second store. Our landlords charged us thousands of dollars to break the leases. I was not only frustrated but also embarrassed. There we were 18 months into it and $500,000 dollars in the hole. Yes, half a million dollars in the hole with a huge cash flow problem.
Finally my back was to the wall with no solution in sight. I left work early to seek help from a book. Surely with all the marketing books out there I could find some help! As I was looking through the bookshelves at the bookstore I came across one of the first editions of Guerrilla Marketing. What in the world is Guerrilla Marketing? Who is Jay Conrad Levinson? I sat down and started to read.
Through proper marketing and tons of hard work, our business finally took hold and we built the Jamba brand in Phoenix. Not only did we save our business we started to really crush it! We found the magic combination; through effective marketing we brought tons of people in our stores. With stellar customer service we kept them coming back. For three years straight, our five stores doubled the company’s average growth. Yes doubled! Two of our stores tripled the average in one of those years. Now THAT is what I expected.
It was a tough road but my partner and I turned the loss of half a million dollars into a thriving package of stores that we grew dramatically over the years that followed and then sold them for several million dollars.
Effective Marketing TV & Guerrilla Marketing Strategies (our marketing company) combines book smarts with “feet in the street” experience from the “best of the best” marketing rock stars out there to bring you the most effective combinations for marketing success.
P.S. To test my knowledge and experience (to make sure our success in one business could translate into any business) I teamed with a partner to buy a parking lot sweeping business (off all businesses) in Phoenix. For the past 3 years we have been working on growing it. The results? Awesome! We have consistently grown it at a rate of OVER 10% every year. In fact…I’m happy to report that this past year (2009) despite the terrible economy, we have experienced growth of over 20%.
